John Buschman sent a link out this morning to this article by Chris Dede in the current EDUCAUSE Review, “A Seismic Shift in Epistemology. The article examines the deep changes in the meaning of knowledge in the academy and elsewhere that are being effected by new technologies, with a focus on Wikipedia and other Web … Read more A Seismic Shift in Epistemology
There is a great article in today’s Chronicle of Higher Education about today’s students, how they think, and why: Wake Up and Smell the New Epistemology, by Tim Clydesdale. I think what it says has a lot of applicability to anyone working with students, and especially information literacy instructors.
MediaLens is a UK organization dedicated to raising awareness of the way the media system distorts reality as a result of the forces of free-market capitalism. Their analysis of things is along the lines of Chomsky and Herman’s propaganda model of media filtering. This month they have published a three-part analysis of current goings on … Read more MediaLens on journalism’s filtering system in action
That’s the winning design in the IFLA/UNESCO design contest for an International Information Literacy Logo. The winning designer was Edgar Luy Perez, of Havana, Cuba. I like the logo, and I think it was a good idea to pursue in an international effort. It is part of the InfoLit Global Information Literacy Resources Directory.
ALA has an important policy, Policy 61, on library services to poor people. This policy was brought about in the mid-90s through the dedicated work of SRRT’s Homelessness, Hunger, and Poverty Task Force (HHPTF), with the leadership of Sandy Berman. The HHPTF is still going strong as one of SRRT’s more active Task Forces, and … Read more Survey report on library services to the poor
A favorite debate of pessimistic sophomores, or perhaps sophomoric pessimists, is as to whether our society and its future is more like George Orwell’s 1984 or Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. It’s such a common juxtaposition and so simple to talk about it that I bring it up at the risk of terribly oversimplifying things. … Read more Intellectual Freedom advocacy in a Huxleyan world
In my view, one of the most important documents and position statements that ALA has produced in the last few years was its June 2007 report, “Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries: Strategies and Actions.” This was produced by a subcommittee of the Intellectual Freedom Committee, now dissolved, called the Subcommittee on the Impact of Media … Read more ALA IFC’s Fostering Media Diversity in Libraries, and ALA’s grey literature in general
Critical Pedagogy and Library Instruction: An Edited Collection Critical pedagogy seeks to identify, critique, and disrupt the inequalities of the dominant culture, thus equipping learners to transform oppressive social, cultural, and economic conditions. While many theorists, critics, and practitioners have considered how critical pedagogical strategies and perspectives might be employed in higher education, the academic … Read more Call for papers on critical pedagogy and library instruction
A book of interest: Mark Bauerlein’s The Dumbest Generation. What it says is that the under-30 generation is so removed from books and reading that it is shockingly ignorant, and we should all be worried. Bauerlein blames the internet. The Chicago Tribune published a decent review a few days ago. The students at the university … Read more Book: The Dumbest Generation
Stephen Mitchell of UC Riverside wrote me the other day to ask, Do you know of academic libraries who have done BI on the War? We’re starting to talk about it and it occurred to me that someone has probably done a nice powerpoint somewhere that we could build on. I asked him if I … Read more BI on the War, anyone?
Two items regarding recent mainstream news reports telling the story that Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez is cracking down on free speech in refusing to renew RCTV’s license. First, Robert McChesney unpacks the issue and provides some of the facts and context that have been buried, showing how “the US media coverage of Venezuela‚Äôs RCTV controversy says … Read more Venezuela’s media and the U.S. media
Library Juice readers on most university campuses should be able to read this new one from EDUCAUSE Review: “If the Academic Library Ceased to Exist, Would We Have to Invent It?” It’s a brief think piece that demonstrates why academic libraries are necessary, answering the idea, apparently familiar to the EDUCAUSE crowd, that they are … Read more EDUCAUSE on libraries (with friends like these…)
Library Juice Concentrate Edited by Rory Litwin Preface by Kathleen de la Peña McCook Price: $25.00 ISBN-10: 0-9778617-3-2 ISBN-13: 978-0-9778617-3-6 6″ by 9″ Published: December 2006 Library Juice Concentrate is a compilation of the best of Library Juice, an e-zine published by Rory Litwin between 1998 and 2005 that dealt with foundational questions of librarianship … Read more New from LJP: Library Juice Concentrate
This post is a compilation of web resources having to do with alternative literature and libraries. It replaces an out-of-date page on my personal site. By “alternative literature” I mean books, magazines, and other written media coming from any of a myriad Left perspectives (socialist, anarchist, green, feminist, queer, or specific-issue-based) and published independently of … Read more Alternative Lit and Libraries
“Critical thinkers can be parodied either as disgruntled and bitter subversives, or as elitist mockers of others’ well-meant efforts. The pejorative associations surrounding the word critical have meant that advocating critical thinking is a form of social and educational bad taste.” – STEPHEN D. BROOKFIELD; Developing Critical Thinkers, 1987. Quotation from International Education Quotations Encyclopaedia, … Read more CRITICAL THINKING
Two articles worth reading from issue 25, the second to most recent issue of Progressive Librarian: “Tabloid Ethics, News Reporting On the Iraq War & the Simulacrum of Objectivity,” by Frank Louis Rusciano “Information Criticism: Where is it?,” by Jack Andersen